A launch ceremony for the national action month for children 2015, which has “Listening to Children” as its theme, took place in Da Nang on Saturday morning.

The city now has a total of 220,000 children aged under 16, about 3,000 of whom are living in extremely difficult circumstances and 7,000 others who come from poor families.

Speaking at the event, municipal People Committee Vice Chairman Phung Tan Viet remarked that top priority will always be given to funding programmes and projects for the benefit of local children.  He took the opportunity to appeal for more businesses, individuals and non-governmental organisations to exert every effort to help local poor and disabled children.

To mark the occasion, the city presented scholarships, valued at 2 million VND each, to 45 local poor studious pupils.  In addition, the local Association of Charity and Children's Rights Protection gave gifts worth 200,000VND each to 200 other poor children.

This year’s national action month for children, which runs from 1 - 30 June, features a wide range of meaningful activities.  They include forums and dialogues to discuss guidelines and policies for raising funds to implement social welfare projects for children.  A priority will be to organise swimming classes for children to reduce the risk of drowning, as well as to present gifts and scholarships to poor studious pupils.